


Over and Over Again

by GravitationalSingularity



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-05 17:25:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12194382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GravitationalSingularity/pseuds/GravitationalSingularity
Summary: Charles drunkenly retells how he once banged a high-ranking American official and woke to the country’s most notorious criminal.





	Over and Over Again

"You should know," Charles slurs, "I never propositioned the man."

He leans into her, his movements languid, and Raven has half a mind to whisk the bottle away. Hank insists that his cousin is usually sober, 364 days a year. Yet for all his defences, why Charles chooses this insignificant summer night to drink at her place is beyond her.

That said, as long as he doesn't leave a mess (he is incredibly fast at tidying up), she's fine sharing glassware. Provided she gets a sip of that expensive wine he brings.

Over the rim of his glass he's watching her with sad puppy eyes.

"Is this about Logan?" Raven asks, knowing full well it is. It's only about the fifth time Charles has retold how he once banged a high-ranking American official and woke to the country's most notorious criminal. She can practically recite his story backwards. "The hairy brute you eye-fucked across the Capitol?"

His neck grows red, but he doesn't correct her. "He's much more gentlemanly than he lets on. We even exchanged letters for a time."

"You're kidding me. Logan can spell?"

"He posts pictures." Charles counters, a tad defensive. "Of course he can spell, he's the-"

"Director of Homeland Security, you told me." She finishes for him. "Though I thought you've fallen head over heels for his barbaric charms. I was in the bookstore the other day when I saw him on a comic cover. Didn't know until much later that I was reading Tarzan of the Apes." She grins when he glares at her. "Not that you haven't fucked his archenemy that same night. What did Erik do again- put on 30 pounds at a YMCA and styled his hair like a wolf?"

Charles pouts and downs another glass. He's far past the point of no return, if the liquor that trickles down his chin is any indication. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "I swear I didn't know. Erik is devastatingly good at transfiguration."

Raven rolls her eyes. There he goes again with the big words. Academics have no room in their sophisticated little heads for laymen terms like 'makeup' or 'disguise'. But of course, somewhere any other day of the year, Professor Charles Xavier is an established Deputy Headmaster fast on his way to becoming Headmaster, or so says Hank. So transfiguration it is.

On another note, how stoned do you have to get to see your genocidal ex for a juicy new conquest?

"Hank says your sister's pretty much a master at that." Raven mimes caking powder on her face. "So much so they call her Mystique."

Charles' eyes light up, like they always do, talking about his sister when drunk. "Oh yes, yes she was. Exceptionally so. She was a born talent we call a Metamorphmagus. Her girlfriend Irene is a Seer."

This Raven catalogues into her mental database. This is new information- a makeup artist and her fortune teller girlfriend. Charles never did go into details, or maybe she's just forgotten.

"Why the past tense?" Irene got the present tense treatment, so Charles did make a distinction, deliberately or not. He shifts in his seat, the way he does when he's bested by someone else at his own game. "It's got to do with that bad guy you had sex with the other night, hasn't it?"

"I wouldn't say he's-" Charles' shoulders slump. "We've different views of the world. Given his history with Shaw it can't be helped." His attention drifts elsewhere. "Irene warned me of this."

"Of what? The Great Depression?" Raven snorts. "It's not like your ex single-handedly brought down the economy."

Not that Charles seems at all bothered by that. He's as well dressed as five years ago (as well as tweed can be anyway), when he first appeared at her doorstep. To say Hank was displeased was an understatement. They had a night-long discussion that Raven wasn't privy to, after that Charles comes along one evening every year, and Hank is never around when he does.

"He's started a war, love. A war that segregates our kind and..." Charles shakes his head. "He may not be preaching blood purity as did Shaw, but it doesn't justify..."

The way he holds himself suggests that memory is painful at best. She eases the empty glass out of his hand. "Tell me about your sister."

"My sister?"

She nods, prompting him further. Talking about his sister always takes the edge off Charles' demeanor. Not that he ever appears more threatening than a week-old kitten.

"She was stunningly beautiful," Charles muses. "She had blue skin and orange hair, and yellow irises." He doesn't sound at all mocking at that horrific combination, which Raven can only imagine to be a full-body color dye gone wrong. The small smile he gives is endearing. She twirls a lock of her blond hair, idly matching it to the fair skin of her fingers. "For the Metamorphmagus she was, she was hilariously bad at Transfiguration. She almost always failed Charms and History. But she's the best Seeker Slytherin has ever known, and she's saved my arse on a broomstick more times than I can count."

Raven assumes Charles' sister is some kind of domestic goddess, which may be where he's learned to mop up inhumanly fast the few times he's gotten drunk out of his mind at her house. She'd love to snitch a hint or two so she could bleach whatever evil concoction Hank's dreamed up in his lab out of existence. She'd also like to rid her cream wallpaper of some hideous blotches.

Charles' eyes dart to said wall, but that eyesore is impossible to miss anyway. "So, what exactly is it that you do when your arse is not atop a broomstick?"

"I teach." Charles says proudly, puffing up his chest. "Mostly DADA, occasionally Charms. I'm the Head of Ravenclaw." His eyes grow soft. "I've also been looking after a young Gryffindor for some time. Scott's a bright fellow, loyal and trustworthy. It was unfortunate that he had in his possession a young Phoenix, and Erik so happens to be looking for one. No doubt for some noble purpose other than killing Senator Kelly's son and wreaking havoc over the streets of New York, as Madam President MacTaggert has told me." He says that dryly, seemingly finding both horror and humor along that line of thought. "He even went the extra mile and disguised himself as the Director of Magical Security to frame poor Scott. Ironically that came to an end when I bedded Logan, who turned out to be-"

Charles drags a hand across his face. "Hank says I never learn." He bites his lower lip, and he's looking at anywhere but her. "That dreadful summer, when that awful spell ricocheted off Erik's shield, it hit  _her_." His knuckles turn white from his grip, and in retrospect Raven's glad she's taken the glass out of his hands. "I can't recall," he says, his voice trembling ever so slightly. "I can't recall exactly which spell I cast, if I did a Stunner or if it was a Memory Charm. I've wanted Erik to stay, stay and forget his hunt for Shaw... If in the heat of our quarrels I've cast a spell so strong that, reflecting off a shield of equal strength, it could wipe a person out of existence and leave only an empty shell in its wake, I can't-"

He halts, looking down at the fingers she's curled around his hand, as though her being willing to touch him is beyond his belief. "I don't deserve you," he says suddenly, stumbling out of his seat.

"Charles-"

He yanks his coat off the rack and when it wobbles and almost falls on her, he holds up a hand. Somehow, miraculously, the rack stills mid-fall and stands again. Raven all but gapes. Charles does too, until he pulls her in for a crushing embrace.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers shakily, sounding as emotional as he is drunk. "Please stay safe. The world is too dangerous for you now."

For all that Raven remembers- she's had an accident, as Hank says, it's given her amnesia, which sucks- she's a fighter. The last thing to deter her is danger. But the pained look in Charles' eyes makes her rethink her rebuttal, enough that she ignores her instinct to flee when he pulls a shapely twig out of his coat.

She thinks something really weird is about to happen with him and that twig, but all he does is bite his lip till it bruises purple, and puts that twig back where it was hidden. She can't help the burn of curiosity- who carries a twig in their pocket, and what's with those mystical hand gestures? That ever-familiar story that Charles retells and retells, is never quite as mundane as she remembers it.

In two steps Charles turns around again, and the next thing she knows the tip of his twig is to her nose. His expression is closed off, as though her _thinking_ somehow forced him to make up his mind, and he did.

"It's for your own good," he says, and if she used to yell at him for thinking he knows what's best for everybody, she's long forgotten how to. "Obliviate."


End file.
